Present day family realities have many brides-to-be contending with some tricky wording on theirwedding invitations. One of my friend’s brides had to place two separate orders for her invitations–to accomodate her divorced-and-no-longer-speaking parents’ insistence on “dividing” (as opposed to “sharing”) their hosting responsibilities. Each parent wanted their name and the name of their new spouse listed on the invitation, and then sent their invitations to their own separate guest lists. The only good thing about this cumbersome arrangement for the bride was choosing the wedding invitation design!

There are lots of nuances to every individual situation. You may have amicable, divorced parents who cooperate fully for the sake of your interests. Or, you may have bitterly divorced parents who can’t be together in the same room. You might have happily remarried parents. Or, you may have one parent happily remarried and another who is not. Whatever your situation, generally keep in mind the following:

Start with your natural mother’s name first.

Your natural parents names, remarried or not, should be listed on separate lines.

Include a parent’s new spouse’s name on the same line if that step-parent has been an important part of your life.

Include both step-parents on the same lines as their spouses if both step-parents have played big roles in your life.

So that solves that! Wait a minute, what about those remarried parents who divorce yet again? Yes, this is where a lot of brides throw in the towel. There is plenty of grace in the phrase “Together with our families …” to deal with multiple divorces, multiple steps, and all the multiple nuances that come with complicated families.

As for other protocol problems involving divorced parents regarding ceremony seating, table configuration, wedding party selections, and more, we’ll save that for another post. In the meantime, please send us your stories and solutions by commenting on this blog.

Now go ahead and get to the fun part…
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